April 04, 2007

Henry Says: Give Us the Emails

by emptywheel

Hey, whose job was it to tell Henry Waxman that he's supposed to be on recess this week? Because he's still churning out letters, closing in on Republican chicanery. This one is, ostensibly, a request to the head of the RNC, Mike Duncan, for any emails relating to the political "team building" events Karl Rove has been doing on the public dime (no link yet--will update with it later):

I am writing to request e-mail communications stored on Republican
National Committee servers that relate to the use of federal agencies and
federal resources for partisan political purposes.

Last week, the Committee held a hearing into allegations of misconduct at the General
Services Administration. One of the issues examined at the hearing involved a partisan political presentation that White House Deputy Director of Political Affairs, J. Scott Jennings, made to the
GSA Administrator, Lurita A. Doan, and approximately 40 GSA appointees in the GSA headquarters building on January 26, 2007.

[snip]

In communicating with GSA about the presentation, Mr. Jennings and his assistant used "gwb43.com" e-mail accounts maintained by the RNC rather than their
official White House e-mail accounts. In their e-mails, they described the presentation as a "close hold" and said that "we're not supposed to be emailing it around."[3]

But this is a somewhat broadly written request. Look at how Waxman asks for the actual emails:

To assist the Committee in its investigation of these issues, I request that you provide any
electronic messages sent or received by Karl Rove, J. Scott Jennings, or any other White House officials using accounts maintained by the RNC that relate to (1) the January 26, 2007, PowerPoint presentation at GSA, (2) the presentation of any similar political briefings at other federal agencies or to other federal
employees, or (3) the use of federal agencies or resources to help Republican candidates.

A few things to remember about this. First, the Oversight Committee (which doesn't get to recess either, apparently) has been interviewing people about the GWB43 server this week. This request may have been stewing since last Friday, when Waxman sent out some other requests (including the request for Susan Ralston's testimony). Or it may be a response to something they've heard this week.

Now, as to the scope, just the campaign strategy sessions alone may well be a violation of the Hatch Act--which requires the person behind those sessions to be fired. (Then of course, knowingly leaking classified information to journalists usuallly requires the person to lose their security clearance, which, in Turdblossom's case, would get him fired too, but never mind that.)

But Waxman is looking for any GWB43 emails sent or received by Turdblossom relating to "the use of federal agencies or resourcs to help Republican candidates." Last I checked, DOJ counted as a federal agency. As did GSA. As did the DHS (remember the plane used to chase down Democrats in TX?). So this may well be a large universe of emails.

Though now that I think of it, can you think of one thing that Turdblossom does that doesn't relate, either directly or indirectly, to helping Republican candidates get elected?

Since I am in MSM-defense mode at the moment, may I just recall an infamous LAT piece by Tom Hamburger discussed here, and what I had to say about it at the time, in explanation and defense of the point of the piece? Sound familiar?

Yeah, keep in mind they're interviewing this week, and Ralston, if she chooses to appear, is scheduled for tomorrow. So it is likely they have real evidence stacked up--they already had it when they first wrote to BushCo about this. But something made them decide to go forward with this letter.

rex

Well, Waxman DOES have subpoena power.

Jeff

I'm at a loss to understand your point. That's not a post I wrote, and I don't see why this post even merits your comments about the MSM. Care to explain?

Not a complaint about you. Point is, the LAT was reporting on Rove's blatant inappropriate and possibly illegal use of goervnment resources for electoral purposes shortly before the election; and the LAT got roundly slammed for being in Rove's pocket at the time.

It's always nice to be reminded that we have been paying to be abused by the Bush mafia ever since it captured the presidency. Rove gets to play the arrogant outlaw on our dime, enjoying all the unfair advantages of an irrevocable security clearance.

There's a fine line here. Admins have always tried top parlay federal largesse into votes--that's the whole point of pork. But there is supposed to be a line between the campaign and the gov't, and between the civil service and the political people. The Bushies have not just blurred that line, they have obliterated it. So they are using this to get at the explicit use of federal personnel to advance the Republican Party. I think this pretty straightforwardly follows from the testimony of the GSA head (Lurita Doan) people last week.

I'm interested in the article Jeff cited because of Rove's cockiness. What more is there that didn't quite work? That's what they're digging for.

Waxman is right on the case here. One of the more notable aspects of the most recent document dumps is the lack of any emails originating from non-.gov addresses: we only see them as includes in replies to those addresses or forwards to other addresses.

If Ralston shows up, she's going to be asked about the backchannel. A lot. Waxman just finished dealing with the executive order on presidential records, and I get the sense that he regards the integrity of the archive as a Big Deal.

And there's a reason not to recess. Time is of the essence if hard drives are being sent through an electromagnet.

Waxman has just enough material to prove that a blanket 'we got nuttin' from the RNC is either a lie or a crime. I hope he has people on his staff smart enough to analyse email headers and message IDs, because it may turn out to be the biggest email forensics case in govt. history.

what legal options does Waxman have to force their submittal?

I think he can argue that the servers hold 'presidential records' as defined by the 1978 Act and that, as such, the RNC is withholding the property of the United States. Now, it might be litigable, but it's not for the RNC to decide, on its own, what constitutes a presidential record.

And remember what a number of folks have pointed out: these emails are hard to eliminate once sent---they are on any number of servers both host and client. So even if certain hard drives are sent through the big electromagnet, just a few surviving examples will send someone to prison for destroying evidence (and make the GOP/WH look even more shitty, if that's possible.)

As pseudonymous says, the biggest email forensics case in govt. history. Popcorn anyone?

If RNC does not cooperate they as a corporate entity would fall afoul of the standards in the now defunct "thompson memo" for deciding whether to indict and prosecute a corporate entity.

Even under it's very waterdown sucessor, the organization as organization could land itself incriminal hot water if they tried to do something really insane.

Presumably cooler Rep. heads will prevail and want to preserve the party as an institution. The best way to do that (if you tink Sarbanes-Oxley principles have broader applications) is to weed out the few bad apples/turdblossoms and cooperate fully in getting those bad appples convicted.

I'm overstating a bit to make a my point b/c I believe this is meant to trigger a response from grownups in the Rep. Party

It's also worth noting that, as far as I can tell, the smarttech SMTP servers don't use SSL or TLS or any form of encrypted transmission protocol. And I'm pretty sure that the loyal Bushies aren't using PGP.

That's not just a violation of the PRA. It's a potential security breach on a massive scale.

Bullseye as per usual. This was exactly what the GOP hammered Clinton about for communicating with Monica over unsecured lines. The content of their conversations didn't matter to the GOP back then, it opened the Executive branch up to "potential" blackmail. That in itself is a huge national security risk.

Wow, Marcy, you came back from your weekend away with guns ablazing!! What DID you do while you were away? (Heh. Purely rhetorical question - do not respond.)

tomj 16:36 -- Waxman's letter was to the RNC, which is the owner of the gwb43.com domain and all emails processed through that domain. There is no question about the server owner/ISP and the legality of their "reading" any mail for this reason. Further, Waxman's letter to the RNC covers ALL emails that would have been sent from any domain owned by the RNC that meet the three criteria Waxman specified.

And Waxman already has access to information to validate emails that the RNC furnishes; if they don't cough them all up, RNC gets slapped with a subpoena (perhaps more than one) and a possible obstruction charge. Yeah, where is that popcorn? I better start popping a mess of it.